Separating from Baldwin
On October 31, 1825, five years after Maine separated from Massachusetts, seventy-five citizens on the Sebago side of Baldwin drafted a petition to separate from Baldwin and establish a new town. The petition was incorporated into an Act that was passed by the new Maine Legislature in January 1826 and signed by the governor on February 10, 1826. The list of those citizens, our founding fathers, contains names that have been prominent in Sebago history from the beginning, and continue today.
The text reads:
To the Hon. Senate and House of Respresentatives of the State of Maine in Legislature assembled
We the Subscribers Inhabitants of the Town of Baldwin in the County of Cumberland ask leave to represent that said Town of Baldwin contains a territory of more than seven miles square and that its situation is such that the inhabitants thereof cannot be accommodated in one town that some part of them are obliged to travel more than twelve miles to Town meetings and a large mountain running through nearly the center of said Town which renders it impractible for them to have any place of meeting in the center of the town
We therefore pray that said Town may be divided by a line beginning at Standish line on the Range line between the first and second ranges east in said Baldwin thence running North twenty five degrees west on said range line about eight hundred rods to the dividing line between the lots numbered seventeen and eighteen in the second range east thence south sixty five degrees west on said line one hundred and sixty rods to the line between the second and third ranges east then Northerly on said line about two hundred rods to the line between the lots numbered fifteen and sixteen in the third rang east thence south sixty five degrees west on the line between said lots about one hundred and sixty rods to the line between the third & fourth ranges east thence northerly on said range line about one hundred rods to the line between the lots numbered fourteen and fifteen in the fourth Range east thence south sixty five degrees west following the line between lots about two miles to the line between the seventh and eighth ranges east thence Northerly on said line about five hundred rods to the southeast Hancock pond (so called) thence following the water communication of said pond to the Hiram line or any other line as you in your wisdom shall think best – that the northerly part of said Town be incorporated into a town by the name of
in use and (??? two illegible words) Communities of other towns in the State
These are the men who signed and submitted the petition:
Babb, James |
Gray, Isaac |
Poor, Jonathan |